US Supreme Court to hear case of death row inmate requesting pastor’s touch at execution

San José, Costa Rica, Mar 15, 2021 / 04:24 pm (CNA).- The National Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Adults of the Costa Rican Bishops’ Conference released a statement in response to the alleged cover up of the sexual abuse of a former student at the Calasanz Catholic school.

According to the local newspaper La Nación, a 21-year-old woman surnamed Cruz Carrillo made the accusation on social media that two of her male classmates sexually abused her in 2016.

The young woman’s decision to bring this complaint to light five years later was due to photographs and posters that began to circulate in the women’s bathrooms at the school, exposing similar cases, La Nación reported.

Cruz Carrillo spoke with the local newspaper and stated that “she and her family were pressured and manipulated by the then director of the institution, a priest from the Dominican Republic, as well as by the psychologists, for them to not file a criminal complaint against the two students.”

In response to the complaint, CONAPROME stated that it is carefully following “the investigation that the school is already conducting regarding this matter to clarify everything involved and to make the appropriate decisions, always according to the guidelines adopted by our Church.”

The commission reiterated its “total condemnation of any incident of abuse as well as any action that seeks to cover it up, especially if it was a minor that was abused.”

The commission added that the services of the Church are “available to listen to the complainants” and “to accompany them in their reality.”

“We inform them of their right to make the appropriate complaints, both at the civil and ecclesiastical level. We express our solidarity with the victims of any type of sexual abuse, in particular with those people who have been the object of this type of conduct in ecclesial settings,” the commission said.

CONAPROME “will follow up on any incident of sexual abuse in ecclesial settings and exhorts Catholic institutions to take up the investigations and responsibilities” of any such cases.

The bishops’ commission also “offers its support to these institutions to achieve these ends.”

Regarding similar occurrences in other institutions that have not been reported, the commission asked citizens “if they become aware of any incident, to make the appropriate complaint, in order to continue fighting as a Church for the creation of safe ecclesial environments for our children, young people and vulnerable persons.”

“Sexual abuse and its cover-up have been, in the words of Benedict XVI, an open wound on the body of the Church. We take on the commitment to do what we can to provide support to you and, on the other hand, it is important not to give rise to unjust and condemnatory generalizations which do harm to so many Catholic educational institutions that have done so much good for Costa Rican society for such a long time”, CONAPROME stated.

Finally, Juan Carlos Oviedo, the commission’s executive secretary, said that “each and every one of the incidences that are reported must be investigated, in order to eradicate this type of situation from our educational environments.”

In early March, CONAPROME announced the first national day of prayer for the victims of abuse in the country, to be held June 1.

Lisandra Chávez, spokeswoman for CONAPROME, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish Language news partner, that “Masses and Holy Hours that day will be dedicated to the day of prayer,” to sensitize the faithful to the issue.

In June 2020, CONAPROME presented the new protocols that will guide the Church’s response to any case of sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable adults by members of the clergy in Costa Rica.

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People arrive to drop off flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. – Grief at the massacre of 19 children at the elementary school in Texas spilled into confrontation on May 25, as angr… […]

New Orleans, La., Jan 24, 2020 / 06:29 pm (CNA).- The New Orleans Saints have said assistance that team personnel offered to the Archdiocese of New Orleans on communications strategy was not a coverup, but disclosure.

The team’s claim comes amid a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against the archdiocese. Saints officials said that team personnel offered assistance to archdiocesan officials on how to manage a 2018 report on clerics removed from ministry for alleged sexual abuse, but that the Saints personnel did not act improperly, according to the AP.

At the center of the suit is George Brignac, a deacon of the Archdiocese of New Orleans who was removed from ministry in 1988 after being accused of sexually abusing minors in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Brignac was listed among a November 2018 report of New Orleans archdiocesan clergy who were removed from ministry for an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.

In July 2019, The New Orleans Advocate reported that attorneys of an alleged victim of Brignac were working to obtain copies of any communications between employees of the New Orleans archdiocese and those of the New Orleans Saints. The alleged victim’s lawsuit, which WVUE identified as John Doe versus the Catholic Church of New Orleans and Deacon George Brignac, says the archdiocese failed to protect him from Brignac.

The attorneys said they had evidence that the Saints’ Senior VP of Communications, Greg Bensel, advised the archdiocese on its 2018 clergy abuse report, and that they wanted to understand how the Saints may have been “supporting the archdiocese on addressing sexual abuse claims and the media coverage surrounding these claims.”

The AP reported Jan. 24 that lawyers “for about two dozen men suing the church” said documents obtained through discovery demonstrated that the Saints assisted the archdiocese in its “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes so that the public does not discover its criminal behavior.” They said Bensel and other Saints employees had advised Church officials on “messaging” related to the clerical abuse of minors.

The plaintiffs are seeking to have the communications made public, which both the Saints and the archdiocese are opposing.

A special master appointed by the court “is expected to hear arguments in the coming weeks on whether the communications should remain confidential,” Jim Mustian of the AP wrote. The AP has filed a motion supporting their publication.

Lawyers for the Saints “acknowledged in a court filing that the team assisted the archdiocese in its publishing of the credibly accused clergy list, but said that was an act of disclosure,” the AP reported.

The football team’s lawyers called the assistance “the opposite of concealment” and called claims it had abetted the coverup of crimes “outrageous.”

According to the AP, an archdiocesan attorney had said the request to have the communications released was part of a “proverbial witch hunt with respect to decades-old abuse” and that it was merely an effort to let the media “unfairly try to tar and feather the archdiocese.”

Brignac, 85, was ordained in 1976, and an allegation against him was received the following year. He held pastoral assignments at Cabrini High School, Our Lady of the Rosary, and St. Frances Cabrini School in New Orleans; St. Louise de Marillac School in Arabi; and St. Matthew the Apostle School in River Ridge.

He was charged with indecent behavior with a juvenile in 1977, and was acquitted the next year.

In 1980, Brignac was booked with indecent behavior with a juvenile and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, but the allegations were not prosecuted, the New Orleans Advocate reported.

In 1988, charges of abuse of a juvenile were filed, but dismissed by the state.

The New Orleans archdiocese has settled several lawsuits involving Brignac.

One of those settlements, made in May 2018, was for more than $500,000. The victim said he was abused as an altar boy at Holy Rosary School in New Orleans beginning in 1979. Roger Stetter, the plaintiff’s attorney, told the New Orleans Advocate shortly after that “it was a fair settlement, and it was very, very prompt.” He added, “I think the archdiocese is doing a lot to try to curtail this type of abuse. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to weed out possible pedophiles.”

Stetter also said Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans is “a good man and wants to do right by the victims, even though it may cost the church a lot of money.”

For several years, until shortly after the May 2018 settlement, Brignac served as a lector at St. Mary Magdalene parish in Metairie, adjacent to New Orleans. The New Orleans archdiocese said its leaders were unaware he was lectoring until after the settlement was publicized, and that the priest who allowed it “was wrong to do so.”

In September 2019 Brignac was arrested on a count of first-degree rape, after a former altar boy said he had been repeatedly raped by the deacon 40 years ago.

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